Eli Lilly and Co’s agreement on 20 April to acquire Kelonia Therapeutics Inc in a deal worth up to $7 billion puts the company in place to exploit the emerging field of in vivo CAR-T therapy which has been described by analysts as a way to achieve therapeutic value without a complex production step. This compares with the traditional ex vivo approach in which T cells are extracted from a patient, modified in a laboratory, and then reinfused into the patient.
AstraZeneca Plc has reported trial data for a new combination therapy directed against muscle-invasive bladder cancer which showed improvements in event-free survival for the patients concerned. The muscle-invasive disease is estimated to affect one in four people with bladder cancer and arises when a tumour invades the bladder’s muscle wall. The standard treatment for these patients is surgery, with or without an adjuvant treatment.
Marty Makary, the British-American surgeon and public health researcher, has resigned as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration after serving in the post for just over a year. He will be replaced, on an interim basis, by Kyle Diamantas, the agency’s deputy commissioner for food. The resignation was reported by Politico on 12 May and later confirmed by President Donald Trump to reporters the same day ahead of his trip to China.
Bristol Myers Squibb Co announced a drug discovery and development agreement with Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co Ltd on 12 May which is expected to yield 13 new products across the oncology, haematology, and immunology sectors and be commercialised across the globe. The deal comes as Hengrui is expanding its market presence outside China and BMS is taking steps to generate new revenue in response to a loss of patent protection on some important medicines.
A panel of life science investors raised concerns at the AngloNordic conference in London on 23 April that early-stage biotech companies are struggling to raise finance. Stephen Hansen, director of biopharma intelligence at BioCentury, cited data showing pre-clinical companies made up 41-42% of financings in 2021/22, but just 25% in 2025. He worried that a vital part of the biotech sector was being neglected in favour of clinical stage ventures, saying: "Somebody's got to be making companies....
Novartis continued to navigate the patent cliff in the first quarter of 2026 as sales of leading drugs such as Entresto for heart failure faced stiff competition from generics. Net sales for the company as a whole fell by 5% to $13 billion at constant exchange rates and by 1% at actual rates. Operating income contracted by an even larger amount as the company increased spending on research and development. The allocation for R&D in the quarter was $2.7 billion compared with $2.4 billion a year earlier.
With Luke Miels in place as chief executive, GSK Plc is taking steps to simplify operations and identify new opportunities in its late-stage pipeline. A portfolio review is underway to identify 50 promising assets that could be the focus of drug development in the coming years. Mr Miels became CEO on 1 January, succeeding Emma Walmsley. He had previously been the company’s chief commercial officer having joined GSK in 2017.
UCB SA announced on 3 May that it has signed an agreement to acquire Candid Therapeutics Inc of San Diego, US, broadening its portfolio to include biologics targeting autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. The Belgium-based biopharma company already has marketed products for epilepsy, plaque psoriasis, and Crohn’s disease. The acquisition will add preclinical and early clinical-stage products to UCB’s portfolio, the most advanced of which are bispecific T cell engagers. These are antibodies that can bind T cells to tumour cells to kill cancers.
AstraZeneca Plc expects revenue this year to grow by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage as label expansions for existing drugs and new molecular entities progress towards market entry. At a briefing for journalists on 29 April, Pascal Soriot, the chief executive, confirmed the company’s ambition to achieve revenue of $80 billion by 2030. He said the company is advancing through a “catalyst-rich period” with multiple positive Phase 3 readouts and regulatory submissions underway.
Seaport Therapeutics Inc, a spin-out of Boston, US-based PureTech Health Plc, priced an initial public offering of its shares on 1 May yielding $254.9 million. The IPO comes only two years after the company’s launch and follows positive early clinical data for its lead product SPT-300 which is an oral prodrug of a neurosteroid that plays a key role in mood regulation. The drug has progressed to Phase 2b and is being investigated as a treatment for major depressive disorder.